Sneak Preview: Sirpa Särkijärvi's Transcriptions at the Joseph Nease Gallery

Tonight Joseph Nease Gallery will for the first time feature an artist from outside the United States with an exhibition of over twenty new works by Finnish painter Sirpa Särkijärvi. The reception will be from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m.

Since opening in October 2017, the contemporary art gallery has facilitated artistic exchange in Duluth by bringing in artists from around the country, and in particular from throughout the Heartland and the Kansas City region, where owners Joseph and Karen Nease previously curated a gallery. This current exhibition, titled Transcriptions, marks a departure from this trend.

As you can see here the Finnish painter has an impressive energetic style. In person the paintings are even more striking, in part due to the scale, and also because of some technical effects. By using a matte, uniform colored background, the glossy, multi-colored images pop from the canvas. The overall impact is dramatic.

Särkijärvi is based in Turku, a city on the southwest coast of Finland about two hours west of the capital Helsinki. She was born in Muonio in the Lapland area of Finland north of the Arctic Circle, a region that experiences 24/7 darkness a portion of the year and 24/7 daylight in mid-summer.

Särkijärvi’s travels have taken her far from Finland, where she has earned an established position in the arts scene. Her work has been shown in Spain and Berlin, drawing inspiration from her experiences in places as distant as Beijing and California. The title of this series, begun in 2015, references her artistic process of soaking in the environments she visits before translating them to the canvas.

“The idea behind the name is that these aren’t just about my inner world, but that I kind of write notes on a paper according to what I hear or about what I perceive,” Särkijärvi told Finnish newspaper Turun Sanomat in 2017. “Everything comes from the surrounding world, what I see and experience, and what other people experience. I turn it into a picture, like as if it were an engram of our time.” *

How did it come about that Särkijärvi's work is appearing at the Joseph Nease Gallery here in Duluth? In 2011 the artist had work in a Kansas City show where the Neases' gallery was located until until moving to the Northland two years ago. The Neases were impressed with the work and never forgot the artist behind it. The plans for this Duluth exhibition unfolded when the Neases learned that Särkijärvi had received a grant from Finland to exhibit internationally.

“Right at the outset, the Finland connection seemed like a suitable fit for the region, especially in view of the many Scandinavian immigrant communities that settled along the North and South shores of Lake Superior,” said Joseph Nease.

As it turns out, Särkijärvi herself has distant ties to the region.

“Sirpa told us that her great-grandfather visited the Iron Range area and traveled along the north shore before the First World War,” said Karen Nease. “According to Sirpa, he planned to migrate to Minnesota. But when he went back to Finland to bring his family over, World War I broke out and he wasn’t able to return.”

Särkijärvi will be in Duluth for the exhibition’s opening reception tonight and will spend a few days here seeing the area.

“It’s interesting to see how multiple generations of Sirpa’s family have been drawn here," said Joseph Nease. “We’re very pleased to help write a new chapter in a story that started decades ago, so to speak, by showcasing Sirpa’s work in Duluth.”

According to the press announcement:
Her Transcription series blends the portrait and the landscape traditions to create hybrid compositions in which the subject and the background discernibly influence each other. Särkijärvi’s earlier painting series going back to 2011 typically depicted a lone person, often female, in surroundings that were identifiably interior or exterior spaces. In 2015, she shifted her focus to place a greater emphasis on the individual or individuals in a field of emotionally-charged color.

Sirpa Särkijärvi was born in the Lapland town of Muonio in 1974. The Turku-based painter’s systematic process of working with fluid acrylics on a horizontal canvas has distinguished her within the Finnish art scene and abroad, with exhibitions in Spain, Berlin, and Helsinki as well as Kansas City, Missouri in the United States. Her paintings are known for their swirling, flowing colors and tension, reflecting themes from gender and behavior norms, to marginalization, exclusion, and power. 

For more information on Sirpa Särkijärvi, visit the gallery website and the artist’s website sirpasarkijarvi.com.

For a chance to meet the artist and see her newest paintings in the Transcription series, be sure to attend the opening reception tonight at Joseph Nease Gallery. More than twenty of Sirpa Särkijärvi’s paintings, all completed in 2018, will be on display at the gallery until June 1, 2019.

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Joseph Nease Gallery is a contemporary art gallery located in the downtown art district of Duluth, Minnesota. Similar in scope to its progenitor in Kansas City, Missouri, the gallery features exhibitions of painting, sculpture, installation, and new media by artists regional, national and international. Since its October 2017 opening, the restored building at 23 West First Street has established an arts destination providing educational and social opportunities for art lovers, collectors, and visitors to the north shore of beautiful Lake Superior. For more information on Joseph Nease Gallery, visit josephneasegallery.com.

EdNote: Simultaneously, there is also an event at The Nordic Center titled Flask Exhibition: Focus on Form and Function running from 6:00 to 8:30. The weather will be perfecto. Include a little art in your evening plans tonight.

* Sirpa Särkijärvi quotes from: “Scenery Enters the Human,” Turun Sanomat, published Oct. 23, 2017.